Men recently charged in Bolsa gang slayings going directly to trial

Two men newly charged last month in connection with the gang-related triple homicide at Bolsa Restaurant on New Year’s Day 2009 will be going directly to trial at Court of Queen’s Bench,

Crown prosecutor Steve Johnston advised Justice Ged Hawco on Friday that the Justice Minister had signed off on a direct indictment that will circumvent the preliminary hearing process at provincial court for Dustin Darby, 30, and Nicholas Chan, 35.

They will join Nathan Zuccherato, 26, an FOB gang member facing three counts of first-degree murder on a new indictment at the higher court for their next appearance on Aug. 30.

Zuccherato, represented by lawyer Alain Hepner, was the only one of the three men in court on Friday.

Johnston said the direct indictment was only filed on Thursday and he did not believe Chan and Darby or their lawyers had yet received notice.

Zuccherato’s charges were already at Queen’s Bench. He was convicted in late 2011 of the planned murders of rival FK gang members Sanjeev Mann, 22, Aaron Bendle, 22, and bystander Keni S’ua, 43, but won a new trial in June on appeal.

Michael Roberto, co-accused and convicted with Zuccherato, also won a new trial on appeal, but he pleaded out to lesser charges recently in a plea deal and will serve the remainder of a 16-year prison sentence in exchange for his testimony at the second Bolsa trial and other gang-related murder trials.

Court heard Chan is being held at the Red Deer Remand Centre. Darby is currently in federal prison on a 7 1/2-year sentence for drug trafficking.

The new charges were part of a police operation, which began in January 2012, and resulted in charges in two cases that remained unsolved since 2008, as well as charges against the two additional men in connection with the infamous Bolsa massacre.

A third man convicted in the Bolsa slayings, Real Christian Honorio, 29, is also appealing his conviction on two counts of first-degree murder and one count of second-degree murder.

The Bolsa murders were a plot to kill Mann by first kidnapping Bendle and forcing him to arrange a meeting at the restaurant.

Nicholas Hovanesian, 27, was originally charged with first-degree murder in the plot but the charges were dropped and he pleaded guilty instead to kidnapping and accessory to murder after the fact. He is serving a 14-year sentence.

Police haven’t revealed what roles Nicholas Chan and Darby allegedly played in the Bolsa killings.

Many cases connected to the FOB-FK conflict went unsolved until a lengthy police probe called Synchronicity made the first arrests in the Bolsa shootings in June 2009.

Nicholas Chan nearly died in April, when an attacker stabbed him outside a grocery store in the city’s Beltline.

FK member Bill Ly was recently charged with aggravated assault in connection with the attack on Chan.

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